The Semi-True Adventures of Lar

Hey Religious Extremists, Why is Your god Such a Wimp? (or, A Male's Guide to the Impending Lesbian Apocalypse)

2010-02-02T07:16:00.002-05:00

I've never understood the common usage of the word macho.

To be clear, I'm referring to the dictionary definition (ultimate masculinity) and not the informal one popularized by The Village People (ultimate gayness.) The word macho is intended to define the pinnacle of tough, but it ends up representing supreme insecurity.

Understanding that contradiction, it's clear that extreme religion is precisely macho. Because I live west of the Prime Meridian, extremist Muslim behavior is more easily noticed, since Islamic tradition isn't intertwined with our culture and considered a part of just how things are. Examples of Islamic macho/insecurity may be more obvious to us Westerners, but anyone who opens their mind even slightly will notice there is little if any difference among Christianity, Islam and Judaism in the extreme.

At their distant ends, all three focus their restrictions on women. When it comes to the religious fringe, it's all dudes all the time. Yet these are the same people who are also violently homophobic.

Another paradox, yes, and it gets worse. Even the gods of extremism reflect the bi-polar nature of macho. A classic example is when the Taliban claimed they had to destroy Buddhist statues in Afghanistan because the statues were just too much for the mighty Allah to gaze upon. (Link.)

Now I'm just a mortal, but I'm proud of the fact that I'm secure enough not to demand my friends blow up anyone who doesn't worship me. Hey, that's their loss!

So here's my question for religious extremists: If your god is such a badass, why does he need mortals like you to fight his battles? Why is your god scared of statues? Or cartoons? Or same-sex love and marriage? Or women thinking, saying and doing what they want?

Silly extremists! Either your faith in your god's power is lacking or your god is a total wimp.

Actually, we all know the real reason for macho's split-personality, why men (and male-like gods) talk tough but act fragile. I'll break the rules and say it out loud: Because females have all the power. They can do anything a male can except make sperm.

That's not to say I would complain if the world was taken over by women and we men were used simply for sperm harvesting. To the more sultry and flexible of our female conquerors, I say harvest away! Sadly, with advances in reproductive technology, even sperm isn't necessary.

A lot of reports and studies appear to support the idea that extremism is on the rise. How much is being fueled by insecure men, aware of their accelerating (or already present) obsolescence? I swear it's only a matter of time before lesbians take over. Name me a single lesbian that isn't damn good at what she does. You can't do it! That's right, men. We are biologically useless! Accept it! Or make a fool of yourself by acting macho.

One who works against the efforts of power-hungry people of their same "race" are often referred to as race traitors. So, being a male who admits to male pointlessness, does that make me a sex traitor?

I hope so, because frankly, I'm down with that. Oh wait, I thought you said trader. Dang it.

===
Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

What Would Martin Do?

2010-01-18T18:46:00.000-05:00

It began with the earthquake in Haiti (Jan. 12.) Then Pat Robertson told a bizarre fiction that blamed the suffering of the quake’s victims on the victims themselves (Jan. 13.) Over those insipid comments, I flew into a rage which sustained itself until today, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (Jan. 18.)

As usual, on this day, I wanted to say a few words about how much I respect Dr. King. I couldn't help but wonder how King would handle the cruel comments of Mr. Robertson. King was an advocate of ignoring critics as much as reasonably possible (See the opening paragraph of Letter from a Birmingham Jail) but still, I needed him for guidance.

It is clear that Mr. Robertson did not (and does not) give any consideration of the clever Christian guidance question, What Would Jesus Do? Then again, if honoring Dr. King was so important to me, why didn’t I give any thought to What Would Martin Do?

I mean, chances are pretty good that King never referred to someone he disliked as a "douche bag asshole," and that was among the more mild of my critiques of Robertson lately.

If I want to communicate that Dr. King has inspired me, then I need to show it. So my tribute to Dr. King this year is to slip into his shoes, imitate as flattery, select him as my avatar. Dr. King sought to inspire and so he did. He made me realize my rage at Pat Robertson was far less productive than a challenging examination of ourselves in the wake of the disaster in Haiti.

I don’t want to be Dr. King. I don’t want to think about what words he would say. I want to write the words that he inspired me to say. I can think of no greater compliment.

So, here we go, some thoughts on the Haiti quake. Inspiration by Dr. King, perspiration by Mr. Nocella.

Ahem.

We’ve all seen the pictures coming out of Haiti. We’ve heard the terrible stories, and in addition to the horrors, what's most disturbing is that they look so familiar. We've been here before. Another region teeming with poor, left by man to teeter on the brink of destruction, has been stricken by nature, completing its final push into the abyss.

No one will fault us for what we cannot control. While this disaster cannot be blamed entirely on poverty, its magnitude can. Imagine the quake striking a suburban American neighborhood equipped with well-worn roads, telecommunications, radios, sturdy housing, food distribution centers. The devastation would be greatly reduced.

With each disaster, the might of our electronic networks is brought to bear. At least financially, humanity is able to respond to need faster than ever before. Of course that's going to feel inadequate. Even if we were on the ground, handing out food and water, that would be inadequate. The dead are gone and nothing anyone can do will bring them back.

So we cannot stop here, proud of our ability to move money en masse to relief efforts, or we will forever be working on cure and neglecting much more effective prevention.

As Haiti staggers back from chaos to its mere edge, let's not allow fate to decide the next focus of our concern, let's focus ourselves. Let's note what other areas in the world are poor and prone to natural disaster. Let's go there next, giving and assisting the poor in establishing themselves a viable infrastructure before the inevitable strike of nature's wrath.

Imagine that in turn, those people assist us with the next region. On and on until there is not a single corner of the world that is ill-equipped to endure the lashing our mother earth always inevitably delivers.

You might call that impossible. It might be impossible, but when the task is caring for our fellow man, we cannot let the odds of our success limit the soaring ambition of our noble dreams.

===
Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

Your Resolution for the New Decade

2009-12-22T16:48:00.001-05:00

New Year's Resolutions often follow three steps. A person comes up with a goal. They assign themselves that goal. The goal is adhered to for the coming year or (more likely) dropped before the year ends.

I'd like to rework the whole thing. I'll design a goal and have others help me, and by others I mean all of humanity. Lastly, instead of for the coming year, our challenge will span the entire coming decade.

So it brings me great pleasure to announce that as we transition from the roaring zeroes (200x) to the swingin' ones (201x) I will be assigning all of humanity a new decade's resolution.

All right, already! If you've read this far, you're okay with my being pompous (I prefer the term BOLD) enough to give a decade long homework assignment to all of humanity. You're getting sick of the pointless verbosity (What is this? A James Joyce novel?) and just want to know what the hell the resolution actually is so you can get busy working on it, or get busy laughing at me. Okay. Here it comes.

Adapt.

That's it? One word? You could have been reading World Net Daily's tabloidian eVomit and I give you one stinkin' word? Well, packed into that one word is a lot of suggestion, so I'll elaborate.

Here's what I want to happen: I want humanity to stop approaching the inevitable changes, surprises and revelations of life with fear, hatred and anger. Instead, I want everyone to approach those events with curiosity, enthusiasm and love. Can a brotha get a witness for the Serenity prayer?

Yes, "adapt" is rather general and I'm not a conservative teabagger, which means my ideas don't reside solely in a world of abstract labels, oblivious to what they mean in the real world. So I'll get specific about two of the many items that led me to suggest this assignment. Our assignment. I refer to The Kindle and The Gays.

The Kindle

The most obvious source of scary change today is technology. Advancements in gadgetry and medical tech come faster and faster. Before Windows has fully slowed down your computer, a new version is available to slow it down in cool and innovative ways.

As a writer, the recent 'thing I could not change' (as the Serenity prayer would say) was the advent of eReaders and eBooks. I'm often asked, 'Hey writer stud, are you scared about the impact that eBooks will have on writing?'

I was at first, until I realized that someone still needs to write the books, whether they are delivered on paper or on a screen. In fact, a strong argument can be made that eReaders are good for authors. They provide wireless on-demand bookstores, which means fewer barriers between hearing about a cool new writer (like this guy) and having an opportunity to buy his or her work.

Sure, there will be problems with piracy, and that could render the standard business model of book publishing (sell zillions of copies) obsolete, but the technology is not going away. The publishing business will have to come up with another structure for supporting itself. In a word, adapt.

Xbox Live had an interesting solution to the piracy problem: banning the systems on which it detected pirated software. (Story here.) Perhaps Amazon could imitate that for The Kindle. Upon detection of a pirated book, it shuts down your Kindle, or auto-downloads romance novels until it fills up. That'll learn ya! So yes, the details need to be hashed out, but the bottom line is, the technology is here, it's near, get used to it. Speaking of...

The Gays

What's another phenomenon of recent human history that reminds us our species needs better adaptive skills? The stampede of gays coming out of the closet, followed by the counter-stampede of ignorami who want to shove them back in.

Apparently what consenting adults do behind closed doors is of utmost concern to some. Of them I ask, 'Can you find something better to do than worry about who is getting naked with whom?'

It's entirely probable (almost certain) that over the last week, some people living near to us all have had a different sex partner every night, penetrated every orifice on their person with every appliance they own, and performed all kinds of other sexual stunts with other consenting adult(s) of the same or different sex. Somehow, this has failed to open up a fiery chasm beneath our feet.

Some people act as if gays 'decided' to be gay with the sole purpose of throwing a wrench into several 2,000-plus-years-old mythologies. Wrong! What happened was those worldviews were revealed as inaccurate. It's nothing to get upset about. Try adapting.

The Conclusion

There are many other things to which our New Decade's Resolution applies. For example, religion totally needs a makeover. That shit has jumped the shark more than Tiger Woods has jumped hotties.

So the world isn't like you thought it was. All of reality hasn't bent to your every assumption. The way you envisioned the world is off from the way the world really is. There's no need for alarm, hatred, or anger. It's a cause for celebration. It means you're learning.

So that's what I mean when I say adapt. Accept that your worldview is incomplete and have the right attitude when you find another gap. Just don't automatically reach for the hate button, okay?

I've got a bottle of champagne on ice for New Year's Eve 2019. We'll see how we did then. Happy New Decade!

===
Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

All the Glamour, None of the Work: Can I be James Bond's friend?

2009-12-08T09:32:00.000-05:00

I hate those abstract questions that sometimes pop up in job interviews: If you could be a vegetable what one would you be? Sounds like something from an annoying Facebook poll. (Redundant, I know. All Facebook polls are annoying.) Sadly, one of those questions did manage to worm its way into my brain's busy schedule: If you could be a fictional character, who would you be?

My first impulse was to say Jesus. That would get me into trouble, one for claiming he was fictional and two, for claiming I could be anything like him. The problem as I see it? Jesus was only half god, so I'm over-qualified. Plus, as much as I like to make a point, I'm not willing to be tortured and die for it. Blogging is martyrdom for sissies.

So with Jesus out of the running, the question persisted. If I could be a fictional character, who would I be? I want to be James Bond's friend.

If you've seen one James Bond film, you've seen them all. The only thing that changes is how exotic (as compared to your average Englishman) is the babe who teams up with Bond. Will she be Near Eastern European or Far Eastern European? Or will they really mix it up and make her Latina? Or African-American? The JB writers must be nearing the end of their Encyclopaedia of Ethnic Hotties. You'll know the franchise has jumped the shark when he's banging an Eskimo named Fukluk.

Another Bond stock character is the poor woman I refer to as the "throwaway babe" for her sad predictable destiny. She's just a working English lass who realizes it's part of her job as a temp at Her Majesty's Secret Service to service James and immediately get murdered, so the audience can hate the bad guy even more and James doesn't have to run the risk of her turning into a stalker.

Bond confronted by all his ex-partners (assuming any of them lived) would make for an entertaining daytime talk-show marathon. Gadget your way out of that one, Bond!

Whether it's killing or fornicating, James never takes a break. He's a workaholic. M and Q are always getting annoyed at James, which is also a full time job. Seems like everyone has a tough job in the Bondiverse, except for James Bond's friend. Most of the time he doesn't even have a name, but he's the guy I want to be. He gets all the glamour with none of the work.

He's the one always chillin' at his estate on the Mediterranean coast, lounging in the sun among several smokin' hot babes who have no purpose other than to be smokin' hot babes. Actually they do have one other function: to leave the deck in a huff when I tell them to amscray so I can talk to my boy, JB.

Job responsibilities include hanging out with hotties, drinking fine wines, and spending five minutes every couple of years saying, "The guy with the eye patch went that way."

Sound easy? Hell yeah! But being JB's BFF is not without its occupational hazards. Sometimes the Bond movies really jazz up the formula and James Bond's friend gets killed (in addition to the poor English throwaway babe) which causes Bond to go on a murderous rampage. Yeah, like he wasn't going to already.

That will be my out. "Colonel Russkibad, you don't have to shoot. James is coming after you whether you kill me or not. Now try some of my vodka..." Then I'll be back to my dream job: doing nothing.

===
Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

Discovery by Denial: Boy Meets Xbox. Boy Loses Xbox. Boy Gets New Perspective.

2009-11-23T09:15:00.000-05:00

As I type this, the morning birds are singing a song and the sun is smiling. I'm waiting for UPS to deliver my repaired Xbox. Every car that whooshes by pauses this writing. Wait! No, that whoosh is too big. Damn fire truck. Wait! No, that whoosh is too small. Damn hybrid hippies! Wait! Wait! Ah, crap. The neighbor got a FedEx delivery. Fate, you naughty tease!

It's been an interesting few weeks waiting for my beloved Xbox to come home. When old 'exy was around, I would play for... well, a lot. More than a pseudo-adult should. The old man inside me weeps. All that time I spend in front of the Xbox I could be yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off my lawn. (Sing: The cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon…)

So I played Xbox a lot until one tragic day, I couldn't play at all. Please, don't cry. I've already done that enough for both of us.

People who aren't addicted to something often say to those who are, "Why don't you just stop?" Naïve fools. They aren't under the spell of something so much fun it can lead you smiling to your ruin. Suckers!

If stopping were as easy as just stopping, we addicts would. We would notice our world crumbling around us. If stopping was that easy, humanity might not even need the word addiction, and we would have a serious problem powering the economy.

But addicts can't stop. Here's time-lapsed internal dialogue that I suspect everyone has had regarding their own addiction(s): "Don't. Don't do that. You shouldn't do that. You know you shouldn't do that. You really don't want to do that. You're going to regret doing that. Oh no, you're doing it. You did it. You shouldn't have done that. Oh well, it's done now. Next time you'll do better."

You know how science says if you touch a hot pan, your hand pulls back before your mind tells it to? Like before you realize you're watching Fox News, you're already stupid? I submit that addiction resides in that zone between reflex and awareness. You get so used to the pleasure your addiction brings and you do it so much, you push it into the no-thought zone of reflex. When feeding your addiction, you don't even notice what you're doing.

It might not even be as fun as it used to be, since the conscious mind doesn't know it's happening. Then again, if you were aware, you might be plagued with guilt. Awareness can be such a buzz kill.

Sometimes though, you're forced into quitting: your drug dealer gets thrown in jail. The distributor runs out of beer. The store sells out of cigarettes. Or your Xbox breaks. Aside: if all of those ever happen to me at the same time, I'm dead.

It's not just addiction. Altering any habit is an eye-opening experience. I never knew there were so many awesome types of food until I went vegan. Suddenly, I couldn't eat the same old food. Blinking, I staggered out of my comfort zone and found a whole new world. (Sing: A whole new world!)

While my baby (ahem, my Xbox) was gone, I learned that there's a lot that goes on in the world when I'm wasting n00bz in Halo 3. None of it is as much fun, but it's still impressive how much you can get done in an evening when 99% of it isn't taken up crushing a preteen's dreams of digital victory.

So for a really unique trip, try challenging your habits. Fight your addiction. Your world will never be the same. It's a special kind of high and one you can be sure you will come down from.

===
Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

The Bitch Slap Jesus Weight Loss Plan

2009-11-09T10:14:00.003-05:00

Recently the doc said I needed to lose weight. It sucks because exercise is boring and eating is fun. I like to have my cake and eat it too. On the couch.

So, using my exercise bike, I started workin' out. (Leaving off the G makes sweating while going nowhere sound much cooler.) Immediately, I developed a deep respect for hamsters. Those guys work out for its own sake. They don't get bored or lazy. They run in that wheel and just don't care. If they ever get a hold of steroids, they're taking over. Or joining the Yankees.

To spice things up in the workout room, I started watching Netflix. Adding an element of couch potato to the routine did the trick! I've lost 20 pounds so far. Gnaw on that, hamster bitches!

I considered selling the rights to my success story and calling it The Netflix Weight Loss Plan. I dreamed of being a Netflix spokesmodel, like that dude Jared for Subway. I know I could do better. Jared? Please. Promoting weight-loss by advertising a place to eat defeats the purpose.

But my dreams faded quickly. Even with Netflix, exercise got boring, and I had to spice things up again. So I got a heavy punching bag. I stand in as one for my wife and I wondered what she enjoyed about it so much.

On the same day I got the bag, the Netflix elf delivered The Passion of The Christ: a movie of torture porn for people who want to censor porn. Hostel for holy rollers. Watching it you would think all Christ did his whole life was get his ass kicked. I could have sworn he said some things about peace and love, but the movie conveniently ignores that, just like most Christians!

So while I'm watching the movie and hitting the bag, I have a sickening revelation: if there is a hell, I'm definitely going. Not for being an atheist or that misunderstanding with the old lady, the cucumber and the duct tape. No, I'm going to hell for simulating punching out Jesus.

I'm ducking and weaving like Mike Tyson's arthritic albino brother and when I hit the bag, the son of God screams in pain on the TV. Left jab! Jesus cries, "Ow!" Right cross! Jesus screams, "Arrgh!" Then Satan cackles, "Get him a body bag!"

Suppose I'm wrong about atheism and when I die, I'm called to account for all my sins. Good thing we have eternity. What will be my excuse on Judgment Day? I'm going to stick with a winner, the "It's the way God made me" defense.

Your honor, I mean, God, look, I'm sorry I kicked your son's ass in a virtual way, but it's not my fault. You see God, it's the way You made me. I'm descended from Italians. All those ancient Roman dudes who whipped Jesus as part of your martyrdom publicity stunt? I'm related to them! It's in my DNA to bitch slap the son of God. Put a dog near a bone, a cat near a bird, Rush Limbaugh near some painkillers (or a pie) and what do you expect? Nature, nature that You created I might add, takes its course.

Really, God. If you think about this objectively, it's your own fault. Put an Italian in the vicinity of Christ, Christ is gonna get beat. Now where's my 27 virgins?

Wish me luck!

Speaking of all this, isn't having the Vatican in Italy like having the Pearl Harbor memorial in Japan? While you're at it, why not give Iraqi civilians a Dick Cheney bobble-head doll?

===
Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

The Flea Market Curse: Karma in Action

2009-10-26T15:25:00.001-04:00

Karma knows no mercy.

Like any force of nature, there is no reasoning with it. Karma acts upon you and you can't fight it or make it let up any more than you can beg gravity to cut you a break when you're about to fall on your ass.

Many times I've witnessed karmic punishment bearing down on people, and even though they fully deserve it, a tiny part of my soft heart feels sorry for them. I would make a horrible cop. "You say this is the first time you've ever done drugs? Well, okay then, but next time, I mean it, you're going to be in big trouble!"

I began this rambling meditation on karma while I was sitting at a flea market, failing to rid myself of my junk, wondering what I had done to deserve such mind-crushing boredom. I didn't care how much money I made, all I wanted was to move the stuff on to someone else and delay its ultimate destiny in a landfill, helping pollute our planet.

The whole flea market experience was painful. Preparing my wares for sale was a total drag. I had to pack everything up neatly, load it into the car then unload it onto the grass. Then I had to sit there and wait. And wait. I suppose I could have just left the junk there, but that would be irresponsible. I had created the demand, I wanted to complete the cycle and feed back into the supply.

After several hours of wasting a beautiful day, barely anything sold, and then it was time to pack up all the crap, stuff it in the car and unload it back into my house where it takes up room, doing nothing to this very moment.

Personified karma was laughing in my face! "You wanted this stuff, sucka! Here you go! Enjoy! Take more! Now you can't get rid of it! Mwaa ha ha!" Karma is apparently passive-aggressive and sounds vaguely like a gangsta rapper.

But I meant no harm! Did I really deserve karma's wrath just because I went through a Pez-dispenser collection phase? Or thought a Fitness Flyer really was a deal too good to be true? Or was impressed with the many uses of the Snuggie? Those damn infomercial people seemed so happy, I had to join in. Yet the happiness wore off quickly and all I want now is to get rid of these things, but no one wants them! So they take up space and linger. Woe to me!

I wonder if there would be any environmental problems if we were all damned by The Flea Market Curse.

The good news is, we are. The bad news is we live like we aren't. Most people throw stuff in the trash and never question how it miraculously vanishes. Meanwhile, a landfill nearby is reaching capacity, polluting their drinking water, sending back karmic retribution in a chain of events so obscure no one could possibly trace them all. Then when our water and/or land is polluted we cry, "Why has god (or fate) done this to us?" We never dare to consider blaming ourselves, even in part. None dare call it karma.

The Flea Market Curse teaches us to think in reverse. Want to stop hazardous input? Prevent output. Want to make people buy less junk? Forbid them to throw out what they buy. Want people to use less water? Let their drainage run only once a week. Want people to use less gas? Reroute exhaust pipes into the car. Want them to stop eating so much? Sew their buttholes shut. And so on.

Too extreme? Maybe, but it's all food for thought. Better we brainstorm now rather than later, because no one escapes karma.

===
Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

The Lifeboat-less Cruise Ship (a Climate Change fable)

2009-10-15T10:50:00.003-04:00

Today, October 15, 2009 is Blog Action Day 2009. The topic is Climate Change. My entry follows.

Suppose you're on a luxury cruise ship (with no lifeboats) a thousand miles from anywhere.

While you're sipping your martini and sunbathing, an announcement blares over the loudspeaker. "This is your captain speaking. We've got a leak in the ship. We're all going to drown unless we get to the bottom deck and start hauling out the water as fast as it comes in. We need everyone's help!"

Being a sane, smart, non-suicidal person, you race to help, screaming for everyone else to do the same. On the way, you pass a batch of people still sunbathing. "Didn't you hear the captain?" you ask, liberally sprinkling your question with profanities too vile for this family-friendly blog.

They laugh at you. "That captain is full of crap. This ship isn't sinking."

What would you do? You could call them more vile profanities, but they are essential to your survival, so you'd want to use every manner of persuasion to get their help. You could kick them overboard so the ship had less to hold up, but that would waste time, which, according to the captain, is running out.

That's the challenge of Climate Change as allegory. Let's extract the meaning.

The captain represents the expert scientists who tell everyone there is a problem. You (starring as yourself) being sane, smart and non-suicidal, conclude the captain is an expert and knows what he's talking about. After all, you trust him to pilot the ship while you sleep, get drunk, watch bad dinner theater and marinate your privates in a hot tub alongside complete strangers and their privates. You're living every day with a trust that the skipper knows his stuff. It would be absurd to suddenly doubt his ability to judge the vessel's seaworthiness.

The arrogant deniers in the story represent, well, arrogant deniers.

I know, I know. We should respect others' opinions, but science isn't a question of preference or taste. Acknowledging Climate Change is a matter of everyone believing the experts that they rely on for everything else in their lives (scientists) from car safety to medicine to food production to whether or not a container labeled "microwave-safe" really is, on and on and on.

Can we please give scientists priority on matters of science?

Back in the day, I read science magazines a lot. I still do, though not as much. Back then (and now) all the science magazines spoke about global warming as a fact. The popular news didn't speak of it a peep. That changed when Al Gore hit the scene with An Inconvenient Truth and raised the alarm on Climate Change. Suddenly all the political (non-scientist) opponents of Mr. Gore, who have never ever discussed science in any depth, are speaking like Doctorates of Meteorology, claiming with absolute certainty that Climate Change is a hoax. I believe their dislike (or jealousy) of Al Gore has clouded their judgment.

This is what is so terrifying about Climate Change. We need everyone's participation to reverse, slow or mitigate its effects, but some people just can't stand the fact that Al Gore was the messenger. That's one psychological breakdown of Climate Change denial, but there are alternate explanations.

For example, the denial might be rooted in a disconnection with the earth and a lack of understanding of its connectedness. It's hard for short-sighted people who have never poked their heads beyond the confines of their own asses to worry about Climate Change. So what if an iceberg melts? They say. It doesn't affect my water supply. Who cares if honeybees die? I can always just go the store and get food.

Wouldn't it be great if someone wrote a book about this Earth-ignorant psychosis and titled it Where Did This Come From?

Whatever the reason for the denial, we need to overpower it. We all must appreciate the planet's fragility and act to protect it. Sadly, chucking deniers off the planet isn't possible, and we could use their help confronting global warming meaningfully.

Deniers, if Climate Change doesn't (at least to your perception) directly affect you now, it will. Look at it this way: if the planet floods and the atmosphere cooks, you won't be able to claim the moon landing was a hoax, or that Obama was born in Kenya, or that putting profit above health is a splendid idea, or hate liberal tree-huggers like me. You won't be able to do jack, because we'll all be dead. So can't we agree on this ONE thing, please? You can still hate me, just PLEASE stop denying Climate Change and work toward eliminating it with what you eat, what you drive and who you vote for.

That might go down in history as the most bizarre sales pitch ever, but in keeping with our nautical theme, I say "any port in a storm" because we need "all hands on deck."

A cruise ship without lifeboats may seem strange or contrived for the point of the fable, but I disagree. It's a perfect description for our one and only planet.

===
Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

Obama Haters Going To War Over Nobel Peace Prize

2009-10-11T10:27:00.005-04:00

I can't remember the exact quote or who said it, but it invoked Zen along these lines: don't let praise go to your head and don't let criticism get you too uptight.

That's the attitude I always bring to awards announcements, whether I'm in the running or just observing. It doesn't matter if it’s the Emmys, the Grammys, the Oscars, the Pulitzer, the Nobel peace prize, or awards at my day job. I find I always come away from the winner announcements with the exact same three feelings.

There's always someone I'm happy for, that I feel was rightly recognized.
There's always someone I feel was neglected.
There's always someone I feel completely undeserving who did win, causing my mind to be involuntarily filled with disturbing visions of the winner performing unholy sex acts upon the judging committee to secure victory.

With these pre-programmed reactions in place, news of Obama's Nobel peace prize victory moved me only slightly. I was glad his efforts at peace were recognized, as I would be for anyone, but I must confess my formidable eyebrows arched a bit at the idea of something called a "peace prize" being awarded to someone who is waging war. I also haven't forgotten that Henry Kissinger won the Nobel peace prize in 1973. Yes, he negotiated a cease-fire, but he also oversaw campaigns of murder in South America.

Back to Obama. I'm glad the win recognizes that he has achieved something simply by not being a flaming asshole like President Cheney and Figurehead Bush. I'm glad the award calls a global B.S. on their macho-swagger cliché: wherein men talk tough but dodge service, lead from the rear, mock those who serve, and whine when other countries won't help their war games.

My personal goal is to do what little I can to move humanity away from war, which is why I voted for Obama. Unfortunately, as much as he has spoken of peace, I haven't seen much action. Dude's barely been in office a year and things can't happen overnight, so I'll give him time, but after nearly a decade of chickenhawks, my patience is thin.

So awards don't affect me much, but what does move me to unrestrained laughter is the predictable-as-the-sunrise rage of the Obama-haters. I especially like when they are so rabid their hate signals get crossed. For example, they claim the award means nothing while simultaneously being outraged that Obama doesn't deserve it.

Here's an experiment. Next time someone rants about what a joke it is that Obama won the Nobel, ask that person who won it last year. Chances are, they'll have no idea. If they do, ask them if that person deserved it. Who knew that all this time, Obama-haters were also experts on Nobel history? Who knew they had such in-depth authoritative opinions on who it is awarded to, why it is awarded and what it means? What a strange coincidence!

Face it haters, you hate Obama. If the dude found a penny on the sidewalk, you'd be pissed. If he stepped on a dog turd, you'd claim it was sent by God to punish him.

Obama-haters, I hear your outcry about Obama's Nobel win. I just wish you had the same rabid reaction when Bush let Osama bin Laden escape and when Cheney handed his mercenary buddies your tax money to kill Iraqi civilians.

As mad as you are about Obama's peace prize, I wish you were at least that mad about war.

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Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

Nazis Always Think They're Fighting the Nazis (or, It's a slippery slope from free prostate exams to mandatory gas chambers)

2009-09-29T10:16:00.001-04:00

Say what you want about President Obama, but he has done one thing very well. He has altered our national discussion. The big question of his term is: how to improve health care? What a refreshing change from the big question of the Bush years: how can we funnel even more money to the rich? Change has come! Instead of screwing up the entire planet, we've graduated to screwing ourselves.

Apparently change upsets a lot of people. This past summer, the usual round of breaking news (it's hot, it's really hot, it's not that hot) was completely pushed aside by footage from town hall meetings and demonstrations. Americans turned out in large numbers to let their opinions about Obama and his healthcare plan be known. This made for some disturbing video clips. (Like this, this, and this.)

Before you get discouraged by this ugliness, look on the bright side. The mayhem at the town halls proves we have at least a partly-functioning democracy. People are free to stand up in public and present views opposed to our country's leaders, opposed to the nation's majority and even opposed to any possible reality.

It's that last group I want to focus on, that cluster of people who see a national health care program as the sole intermediate step between where America is now and late-1930's Nazi Germany. If how a country makes a seamless transition from free prostate exams to mandatory gas chambers is a mystery to you, chances are you're sane. Or, according to supporters of the thesis, you've been duped.

Human history sadly never lacks stories of genocide, but for some reason the Nazi reign sticks in the American mind. Can a brother get an update? Nazis are so old-school. They've been replaced by Commies, then Russian Commies, then Warlords, then Terrorists. Official enemies come and go, but America's favorite bad guy remains the Nazis.

Maybe it's due to the perplexing question of how Nazi Germany came to exist at all. How did it happen? How did a country famous for something as harmless as beer and ridiculous as lederhosen become the most murderous, destructive force the world has ever seen not counting Wal-Mart?

I think the Obama-is-evil crazies provide the answer. See, everything happens for a reason, even nutty people showing up in public. Whackos have their uses, I guess.

Let me explain. What cracks me up, in a we're-all-doomed-so-laugh-or-you'll-cry kind of way, is that the people who scream Nazi the loudest, who call people Nazis the most, are also the people who act most similar to the Nazis, or are at least the most ready to become American neo-Nazis. Let's call them Americanazis and compare.

The original Nazis believed without question the fact-free ravings of a leader with access to major media, perpetual rage, and dubious sanity. Americanazis do too (Beck, O'Reilly, Limbaugh). The original Nazis believed the big lie: Jews were taking over, and if you didn't see evidence of it, it's because they were so skilled at hiding their schemes. The Americanazis believe Obama's healthcare plan and his every action (talking to schoolkids, planting a garden, playing basketball, etc.) are secret plans of evil and if it seems to your observation to be otherwise, that's because he is so skilled at hiding his nefariousness. Nazis were told they were under attack and they believed it (as explained by Goering in his famous quote on how to start a war). Americanazis are told they are oppressed and under attack, and they believe it as well. Reference the ludicrous War on Christmas and the perpetual warnings against liberals, education, the media, political correctness, as well as many other dastardly abstract nouns.

So maybe all of that can be overlooked, but what makes Americanazis prime candidates as Nazi re-enactors is their disturbing sexual attraction to firearms. That completes the Nazi package: crazy leaders, gullibility, anger, paranoia and guns.

How did Nazi Germany arise? There were some key angry cult-leaders stoking a bunch of scared and willing-to-put-anger-before-thought believers. Before long, people are committing horrible evil acts because they are convinced they are doing so against horrible evil people.

Nazis always think they're fighting the Nazis. It's the eternal wisdom of "whoever smelt it dealt it" scaled to address the psychoses of the terrified, gullible, angry, armed, hate-prone demographic.

Nazis always think they're fighting the Nazis. Prove me wrong. When you fail, you know what to call me.

UPDATE: Mere seconds before I posted this, I ran across this disturbing story: Right-Wing Conference Tells Activists To Get Their Guns Ready For ‘Bloody Battle’ With Obama The Nazi (link) which neatly proves my point. The Winner of the "Most Likely To Be The Next Nazis" award is... the gang accusing others of being Nazis.

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Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

How Patrick Swayze Gave My Life Focus

2009-09-15T11:26:00.002-04:00

A long time ago, an ad for a video tape rental store (remember those?) was promoting their recent releases. "We now have Roadhouse," the store clerk teased. An eager customer asked, "Is that the one with Patrick Swayze bustin' heads and breakin' hearts?"

I forget the rest of the ad, but one phrase resonated in my soul.

Bustin' heads and breakin' hearts.
Bustin' heads and breakin' hearts.
Hell yeah!
Bustin' heads and breakin' hearts!

I found that phrase a brilliant combination of cheese, bravado and romance. Not unlike myself.

Ever since then, "bustin' heads and breakin' hearts" has been my motto, my life mission summed up in a few words, and as you well know from hours of careful study, my number one "activity" in my Facebook profile.

I'm not sure if absorbing ad copy by some anonymous writer about a movie he was in counts as a tribute to the late Mr. Swayze, but it's all I've got to give.

So rest in peace, dancin' dude. Thanks for changing my life forever. I never went in for your more popular (girly) work. The rest of the world can keep Dirty Dancin'. Baby can stay in the corner for all I care. Roadhouse was more my speed. It had fights and hot chicks and well, I can't remember much else, but really, minus the fights, what else do I need in a movie?

Oh yeah, and I liked Red Dawn because I always hoped it would happen in real life. Back in the 80s I eagerly waited for the Russians to attack. I figured if they did, school would probably get cancelled and any day away from school was a good day. Wolverines!

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Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

Loving Music as Opposed to Stalking It

2009-09-10T10:16:00.001-04:00

I never used to care much about pop songs being used in commercials. The band wrote the song, so if they wanted to use it to sell cars or toilet paper or booze, that was none of my business. But my heart's been broken lately so I'm reconsidering my hands-off approach.

This change was driven by a relationship that hit a rough patch, involving me and a song by The Chemical Brothers. In Galvanize, an electronic beat blends with Middle Eastern ululating, string instruments and hip-hop lyrics. It's a perfect example of the positive things that our shrinking world's meshing cultures and vanishing borders have to offer. The lyrics, too, are all about people coming together. Brilliant!

Imagine my horror when I saw my beloved tune playing soundtrack to Budweiser TV commercials over and over and over. Now when I hear this transcendent song, the expanding thoughts it triggers compete with the Budweiser beer logo. Ugh. (Video here.)

Another similar case: I was recently forced by the obligations of marriage to see the heinously unfunny movie, I Love You, Man. This film would have been more aptly titled Field Study of Douche Bags, but never mind the crap flick. What really hurt was that the two main characters had this annoying obsession with the band Rush.

So of course, there were several filler scenes of the douche duo characters showcasing their Rush-fandom via air instruments and whacky vocal noises as part of their bromance. Look at him frantically mime that drum solo! Haha! He got so into it, he fell over! That's really funny! He fell!

All I could think was, thank heavens I no longer listen to Rush with the devotion I once did. Because that movie would have absolutely killed a few of my favorite Rush tunes. Good memories associated with those songs would forever clash in my memory with insipid scenes of this crappy film.

The examples go on. Recently, The Black Eyed Peas wonderful song, I Gotta Feeling was promoting CBS' new shows. (Video.) I even seem to recall years ago that Jethro Tull's Locomotive Breath was used to promote car sales (who is the genius marketer who came up with that?) I'm sure everyone has their own example of a sell-out that broke their heart.

A sell-out? How judgmental! Who the hell are we?

Is it really fair to accuse musicians we like of "selling out" when they use their creations to make money? It is their work of art and it is their right to do what they want with it, even if we think they are defacing and cheapening something beautiful.

We don't own those songs. We simply love them. To think we own them because we love them, that's the mentality of a stalker.

One possible solution to this heartbreak is to turn off the offending media when your song is being besmirched, but as anyone who spends a few seconds in the USA knows, exposing yourself to culture means exposing yourself to ads. Kurt Vonnegut even felt they were one and the same. There is little to no escape from ads, even when you do make an effort to tune out.

We can't change the situation, so let's try a new attitude. Think of tunes not as your possessions, but as living things. You know that bit of needlepoint wisdom? If you love something set it free, if it doesn't come back that must mean you smell? I mean, if it doesn't come back it never was yours?

It's time to think of songs like that. Think of them like children, friends, family. Living things. Sometimes they make choices you don't like. Sometimes they go into sales instead of medicine, sometimes they work as strippers instead of teachers, sometimes they vote Republican instead of for their own interests. You're sad because they're not pursuing what you wanted, but that's when you need to remind yourself, you don’t own them, you simply love them.

One of the most touching moments of my life was when I asked my mother to proofread a letter to the local paper where I expressed my pro-choice views on abortion. Being generally of the opposite view, she took a deep breath after fixing each sentence for grammar alone, not content. She seemed to be steeling herself against the fact that her son was becoming his own man. In that moment, I felt a bit of freedom. It was a brief event, but huge in retrospect. Thanks, Mom!

So it must be with songs. I'll always love the Chemical Brothers' Galvanize. I won't always love the places it goes or who it hangs out with or what it does, but it will always have a home in my heart.

Thinking this way brings me peace, so I must be on the right track.

===
Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

Fart Euphemisms in Movie Titles

2009-09-01T10:43:00.001-04:00

Of course I'm immature, but I don't think this is entirely my fault. It's not like I went looking for a bunch of movie titles that sound like coded descriptions of breaking wind. These just whooshed out, so don't accuse me of being childish because whoever smelt it dealt it. I mean, whoever accuses loses. Consider the evidence:

Top movie titles that sound like descriptions of a fart

The Phantom Menace (IMDB) Aw, dude, who let loose the phantom menace?
The Last Airbender (IMDB) No more corn dogs, dammit. That's the last airbender!
The Happening (IMDB) Why all the incense? I had a happening.
K-19: The Widowmaker (IMDB) Clear the room! We got a K-19 on the loose!
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (IMDB) Uh oh. I smell a crouching tiger, hidden dragon.

Honorable Mentions

Something Wicked This Way Comes
Silent Running
Fast and Furious
The Fog
The Mist
What Lies Beneath
Gone with the Wind
Cast Away
Lethal Weapon
The Fifth Element
Baadasssss!

Some interesting patterns emerge. There are two films based on Stephen King stories (The Fog and The Mist). There are two films directed by M. Night Shyamalan (The Happening and The Last Airbender). Noise or signal? Coincidence or meaning?

Feel free to let loose in the comments section for any you feel I've missed. Thank you for your contribution to this important issue.

===
Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

Guns are anti-Freedom and Blasphemy is Fun!

2009-08-14T11:36:00.019-04:00

So while there's all this discussion about Healthcare lately, I keep thinking about the man who brought his gun to the town hall meeting in New Hampshire where President Obama was speaking. (Story here.) Sure it was Mister Kookypants' right to carry an unconcealed weapon, but I'm not convinced he did so for any reason other than making a not-very-subtle threat. Like a staple Hollywood mobster, he was saying, "Sure would be a shame, you know, if someone got shot."

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was his right. But that's not why he brought it. Does he take that gun, unconcealed, everywhere? To the supermarket? To funerals? To dance recitals and/or little league games for any kids in his life? To get his pedicure? For his dress fittings? I don't think so. Did he simply want attention? If so, why not wear a clown suit? That's your right, too.

No. It had to be a gun. It was an action of attempted intimidation and he serves as an excellent example, in the opposite direction of his intent. Instead of "I'm here to defend freedom," his message is, "If I can't get what I want via a fair election, I can still pop a cap in your ass."

This wanna-be gangsta illustrates the reality of gun-based freedom babble. Guns function not as protectors of democracy, the will of most people, but rather to empower a small minority to attempt intimidation and entertain fantasies of a violent coup when that minority is fairly out-voted.

In other words, and I know this is sacrilege in the USA, so I'm savoring the run-up to openly saying it: guns reveal themselves as tools to defeat freedom, not defend it.

Whoa! That felt good! I should blaspheme more.

Wait! Am I just being yet another blogger who says something outrageous and generalized (and therefore inaccurate) just to get attention? Wouldn't it depend on how the gun is wielded?

Like all things second amendment, in the abstract, that sounds right. In reality, when would you need a gun to defend freedom if you're in the majority in a country run on democracy? And if you're in the majority, how could a minority possibly gain power, except via guns? Other than an occasional individual shooting at an individual attacker, how have guns improved democracy and/or freedom?

Hint: They haven't.

UPDATE Tuesday August 18, 2009: Looks like the blatant hypocrisy of claiming to defend freedom by threatening the majority of the people's will is catching on. From the Associated Press: Man carrying assault weapon attends Obama protest. (Link) Guys, threatening a man the majority of the people voted for isn't pro-freedom and it isn't democratic, it makes you at best a cog in the machinery of dictatorships, and at worst, a barbarian. In the vernacular, you're being assholes.

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Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

Empowerment beats Guilt! Five Steps From You to War is a Finalist in the YouTube Come Clean 4 Congo contest!

2009-07-23T13:30:00.030-04:00

Awesome! My video Five Steps from You to War is one of three finalists in the YouTube Come Clean 4 Congo contest. The prize is a trip to L.A. for a red carpet event featuring the videos during the Hollywood Film Festival. Go to this link (http://www.youtube.com/user/ENOUGHproject) click VOTE and give my video (the black & white one) a thumbs up. For extra credit, give the other two finalists a thumbs-down!

Obviously, I'm excited about playing a part in bringing awareness to this issue. Regular readers of this blog (I love all three of you!) will note that this subject is very similar to the plot of my novel, Where Did This Come From? http://tinyurl.com/wdtcf

On top of the importance of the issue, I'm also juiced about potential networking opportunities making the finals (and a victory!) may provide for my writing.

The three judges are Hollywood people not to be sneezed at: Ryan Gosling (Nominated for Academy Award for Half Nelson and also co-starred with Anthony Hopkins aka Hannibal Lecter in Fracture.) Then there is Sonya Walger (Penny Widmore from Lost, yo!) and Wim Wenders, who I am not too familiar with but he's directed at least a bazillion movies. Those three liked my video, and I'm honored just from that, but I'd like to tell them in person. That's where you come in.

So please go to the YouTube contest page (here's the link again: http://www.youtube.com/user/ENOUGHproject) click the VOTE button and give my video a green thumbs-up. Learn a bit about your cell phone's history and do me a favor I'll forever owe you one for! Please tell your friends. And tell your friends' friends. Tell your enemies, family and complete strangers! Mobilize your social networks! Thank you for your help. P.S. You are awesome!

Here's my director's statement about the video:

1. I wanted something using modern cell phone communication methods (text message shorthand and icons.)

2. I wanted something that showed five easy steps, so you can see the close connection between you and the war.

3. I wanted to stick with five so you can memorize them just by counting the fingers on your hand, which also conveniently holds your phone.

4. I was pleased that the explanation of the problem is described three times in three different ways in under 60 seconds.

5. The call to action: It's of utmost importance when advocating any kind of consumer activism to not simply end with guilt. In the industrialized world, we are all consumers and have no choice about it. You should first bring attention to the problem, that will activate people's concern, and then say, if you're angry about this, here's what you can do. Empowerment is more effective than guilt.

Come Clean 4 Congo! Text "congopledge" to ACTION (228466) to find out more.

Thanks for your support. I'll give your regards to Hollywood!

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Larry Nocella is the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers. For more info, visit LarryNocella.com.

Bruno ist maschterpeizen du satiren! (Translated from German: Bruno is a masterpiece of satire!)

2009-07-13T11:07:00.015-04:00

Saw Bruno this weekend. Loved it for many reasons. Primarily because it was outrageous. I also like the blend of scripted scenes and absurd interviews. You can never quite tell what's real and what's staged. Like Fox News.

I recently went on a liberal-leaning website (The Huffington Post) and found myself laughing at all the comments complaining about how they feel Bruno reinforces gay stereotypes. They were in fact, reinforcing the stereotype that liberals are a bunch of humorless analysts who can't cease promoting their agenda for even one second, even to laugh at an obvious over-the-top parody from someone clearly on their side.

The fact is that Bruno is a masterpiece of satire. All topics are fair game, but more than homophobia, the movie hits the phenomenon of celebrity: its insincerity, the self-destructive (and destructive to others) lust for it, its obliviousness to hypocrisy.

Cohen's satire smokes The Onion's groin-kick obviousness or The Simpson's spoon-feeding subversion. Why? Because Bruno shows by example. Witness Paula Abdul live as she talks about human dignity while sitting on the back of a Mexican. Note the consultants advising Bruno on the hottest charity to get into so as to become famous-er. Feel your jaw drop as you watch show-biz parents willing to pimp their children out at any cost.

This behind-the-scenes look at the Fame Industry is eye-opening enough to be almost documentary-worthy.

With every work of satire comes complaints that boiled to their essence are concerns that people are going to take the work seriously and incorporate it into their world-view. The role of knee-jerk is currently being played by GLAAD, who despite their admirable agenda, are pushing the complaint that Bruno reinforces gay stereotypes.

So surely GLAAD must be violently opposed to the Bravo network, where every other show features gay people as fashion-designers, interior-designers or hair-designers. No such luck. A quick (and admittedly lazy) search on their site finds an essay titled Where We Are on TV: 2007 - 2008 that calls Bravo "The gold standard of LGBT representation on reality shows." (Link.)

But I'm not here to pick an internet brawl with an organization I mostly admire. I'm here to say that Bruno is a great film, funny and clever and ridiculous all at once. It even takes a few shots at homophobia, as Bruno visits gay-converters, taunts the cruel "God Hates Fags" people, and pulls the ultimate prank on a proudly straight crowd expecting a cage fight.

The real target of Bruno was fame and those who reach for it.

Now for some humility. The Huffington Post's Guide to Blogging instructs bloggers to "write on top of the news." That is, in order to get more site hits, you should hitch your blog to a rising news story, which I just did. So, despite my critiques, I suppose I'm not immune from fame-lust either. Bruno was right!

Ach mein suchen butockenkopf! (Translated from the German: I'm such a butt head!)

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Larry Nocella is the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers. For more info, visit LarryNocella.com.

How many times do you have to have gay sex before you're officially gay? (or, Change isn't always good, but that's no reason to be a judgmental jerk)

2009-07-06T14:53:00.027-04:00

There are just way too many clichés designed to discourage experimentation with your life, your identity and your habits.

When you're young, whatever you feel like doing is not really what you feel like doing. It's described by others as just a phase. When you're older, anytime you try something new, it's a trend. Then you're going through teenage rebellion. Then you're finding yourself. When you're older still, you're not trying to enjoy life's infinite variety, you're going through a mid-life crisis.

Can't someone just do something new because they feel like it and not have it categorized like a mental illness? Isn't it okay if something is a passing phase, why are the above clichés packed with such scornful judgment?

I mean really, can't a dude wear a dress once in a while just to try it? Does that make him a transvestite? Surely there must be a limit on how many times you can have gay sex and still not be officially gay. Please say it's more than ten times so I don't have to change my Facebook profile… to Republican.

Where is the line between a passing phase and your identity? Isn't any experimentation a part of your identity anyway?

I've never understood the mocking of our past selves for harmless preferences or even noble goals. How many times have you experienced some variant of this conversation: Oh my gosh, did we really used to X? (Where X equals any previous activity now discarded: wear legwarmers, listen to [a band fallen from fame], use gallons of hairspray, aspire to be vegan, try to live off the land, etc.)

Why is a phase sometimes viewed with such reverent awe (see Piccasso's Blue Period) and other times viewed with such mocking disdain (see glam metal)?

One of the rare clichés I know of that supports change is the dogmatic, and therefore wrong statement, "All change is good." That one is best debunked visually, as seen below.

[Cartoon first published in QECE #3 page 3.]

This rant got started because I wanted to kick off my new website logo and blog name with an explanation, but there's not much to say except that I want to have more fun. I didn't like the old stuffy design, and I wanted a more snazzy title. I wanted the posts to be shorter and to gravitate away from gravitas and drift toward more fun.

Then I ditched the idea of posting about the rebranding (as it's called in the dot biz) because the last thing the world needs is a blog entry talking about the blog itself. Whoops.

So, is calling my blog The Semi-True Adventures of Lar just a passing phase? Almost certainly. Is it part of who I am? Almost definitely.

Clichés usually annoy me, because they're levers pulled by the reflexive and lazy mind, but there are some I can live with, like this: Variety is the spice of life, suckas.

===
Larry Nocella is the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers. For more info, visit LarryNocella.com.

Rare Find! A Funny Michael Jackson joke!

2009-07-03T07:23:00.005-04:00

I don't like to make jokes when people die, I mean, death is serious and sad. Frankly, it sucks. Except maybe when it comes to Hitler. Anyway, I couldn't help but trying to come up with a joke about MJ's passing.

Imagine my surprise when, upon sharing this joke with friends, a joke I wrote, the response was not the usual why-am-I-your-friend-again? look, they actually laughed! You like me! You really like me! Or at least tolerate me!

In fact, most friends were so impressed they insisted that I put this joke on my blog as a way of stamping my authorship on it, so when you hear it on Bill Maher, The Daily Show, or Late Nite with Comedian X, you'll know I'm not lying when I say I wrote it. I'm copyrightin' this bad-boy, gonna be rich soon.

Okay. Okay. So you made up a funny joke. Shut up and tell it.

Sorry, voice in my head. Here goes. Enjoy.

Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett both arrived at the pearly gates at the same time.

St. Peter said to Farrah: "So what did you do in your time on earth?"

Farrah said, "On TV, I played an angel."

St. Peter said, "You may enter. We always welcome those who portray the kingdom of heaven."

St. Peter turned to Michael Jackson and said, "So what did you do in your time on earth?"

Michael Jackson said, "Well, I slept with a lot of children."

St. Peter said, "You may enter. We always welcome Catholic priests."

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Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

Glad to see democracy in Iran, is it authentic? American ambivalence. btw, What does it mean to lose moral authority?

2009-06-21T20:12:00.021-04:00

So there's some trouble after the Iranian election. Silly democratic amateurs! They should learn from us Americans. We've been rocking democracy for 200-plus years, so we know how to do it right.

Psst! Bush v. Gore? Oops. Psst! The Franken-Coleman race? Double oops.

Okay! Okay! So maybe we Americans aren't that great at democracy, but at least we like to think we are, and it's the thought that counts, right? Damn, don't we get any credit just for believing?

We get so proud when we see democracy flourish in other countries, voters smiling for the cameras and showing their stained fingers! Hey wait a minute… why are they staining the middle finger? We love to see foreign democracies, until we realize the guy voted in hates us as much as the guy voted out.

Call me cynical, call me paranoid... and you'd be right, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong when I have a sinking feeling that I've already read the spoilers for made-for-TV Iran election drama.

It just strikes me as extremely convenient that a country the USA and most Western nations officially dislike, a nation they simply cannot stop from pursuing nuclear power (and nuclear weapons) is plunged into chaos during an election.

What reason do I have to doubt the official version? It's plausible enough. Maybe most Iranians are embarrassed that their face to the world, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is portraying them like ignorant, war-hungry morons. I'm sure there was someone like that as our president once.

Or maybe, just maybe, the current strife in Iran is just another example in a long line of clandestine US and CIA manipulation. (Reference Chile, Iran 1953, Cuba, Grenada, and on...)

A recent pundit cliché these days is, America has lost its moral authority. I don't know if they know what they mean by that, I suspect they've been infected by the meme, and it seems weighty and profound. I'll try to be more articulate. What it means when America loses its moral authority is that it's hard to believe that America inspires democracy instead of just inspiring its appearance, while actually subverting it.

The USA wanted regime change in Iran. Then after an election in Iran, the incumbent claims victory and opposition candidates cry foul. Wow! That sure was a lucky break for the USA!

Cynics everywhere are placing bets on which alternate ending we're going to watch: will the US pull a "Bay of Pigs" and not be there for the puppet? Or will they execute (pun?) a "Pinochet in Chile" and be there for the victor even if he proves to be a war criminal? Opposition candidates in Iran must know (or were told) they will be treated as heroes if they remove the thorn from the West's collective toe.

The CIA can't lose here. Installing a puppet isn't even essential. Chaos is a sufficient end. If you can whip up enough protest, whether founded (as when Bush "won" Florida by the Supreme Court ending a recount) or unfounded (Obama's non-existent birth certificate that actually does exist) you can attempt to deprive the official winner of legitimacy, and fill their term with late night monologue jokes, talk radio rants and extremely un-witty spam about how they didn't really win.

On the Iran situation, President Obama has even tried some philosophical flanking by stating that his response to the crisis is muted because he doesn't want anyone to think the USA is meddling. Now why would we think that?

So what's a concerned American to do? Twitter your ideas for subversion furiously or hope the anti-USA guy wins if that's what Iranians want? Wait a sec, if the Iranian leader is pro-America isn't that good for me since I'm an American? Should I care about genuine elections in Iran, or just care about what's good for me? Are we witnessing democracy in action? Or more stoking by the CIA?

Is it real? Is it fake? I don't know. I allow myself the luxury of no commitment to any belief. Ahhhh… very nice.

Here's what I'm sure of: the photos and news coming from Iran are very disturbing, what appears to be police attacking peaceful demonstrations. If they don't knock that off, I'm going to be putting aside my skepticism for some good down-home righteousness. I hope you find peace Iran, inside and with the Western governments.

I'd like for my country to get along with Iran, and I'd like their leader to be someone Iranians want elected. Lastly, I'd like a snack that has the great taste of a potato chip with the same nutritional value as broccoli.

5ewbud3t4m

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Larry Nocella is the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers. For more info, visit LarryNocella.com.

The Emergence That Didn't Emerge when Atlas Shrugged (or, If Atlas Shrugged, his job would get outsourced.)

2009-06-08T10:33:00.014-04:00

Since people tend to think in labels, most of them are surprised that I, being labeled a liberal (meaning I put caring about others at a high priority) have read and enjoyed books by Ayn Rand, herself being labeled conservative (meaning she puts caring about oneself at a high priority.) This fact often makes my fellow labeled-liberals gag.

Yes, I've read and enjoyed Ms. Rand's books, including Anthem, Atlas Shrugged, and The Fountainhead. I think I may have even tried her book The Virtue of Selfishness, but I bailed before completion. Call me virtuous.

For those who don't know squat about Ayn Rand, she's the patron saint of free market, zero taxes, individualist philosophy. When I say she's the patron saint, I mean that in its fullest sense. She's just as extreme and just as wrong in many of her assessments of the world as the people that worship her.

There is some intelligence in her endless warnings against too much forced behavior on behalf of society. I know giving her one sliver of credit will make some of my fellow liberals have a stroke, but I've always felt it best to extract wisdom wherever you can.

As an example, her book The Fountainhead is moving to any struggling artist. It's about an architect who is visionary and uncompromising. As a result, he is blacklisted, having to fight his way into the profession with heroic determination. Leaving aside Rand's inaccurate formula that "the masses" are always wrong and the individual always right, I enjoyed this book as simply an underdog story. It's inspiring for an author in search of an agent with the vision to release the genius of his blockbuster novel. That author would be me, by the way, in case that analogy blew past ya.

So that's my analysis of Ayn Rand: as an artistic philosophy, somewhat inspiring. As a social-political-economic philosophy, I'm unmoved.

The Ayn Rand novel I want to talk about most is Atlas Shrugged because I think its misguided views are backing a lot of modern opinion. In the book, the richest, most powerful men in the world have had enough of being taxed so they shut down their companies and thereby shut down the world. The whole planet plunges into chaos until the titans return.

This explains the title. It's a spin on the myth. Atlas gets sick of carrying around the world, of people freeloading off his effort. So he dumps the planet and everyone suffers.

The plot is laughable. Why? Because what would happen today if a worker walked off the job and said "I'm not working for you anymore?" The instant this earth-bound Atlas mentioned he might "shrug," he'd be notified that his services were no longer required and he was being replaced (for one-tenth the price) by a desperate immigrant escaping some war-torn country.

Of course, if the exiting person was a CEO he would probably reap a huge bonus on his way out, but ultimately the world wouldn't stop, it wouldn't even blink.

In short, if Atlas shrugged, his job would get outsourced. He'd be lucky if he could find even an asteroid to carry around afterwards.

Well what if an Atlas-like CEO actually owned the company and decided to take it elsewhere? Sure that would damage a lot of people's financial lives, but that illustrates that the existence of all-powerful individuals makes the world unsafe for other individuals. Ultimately, people have no choice but to band together (via society, or unions, or taxes) to prevent simply living at the whim of the wealthy (reference the at-will employee.)

I never really gave much thought to the magnitude of Ms. Rand's wrongness until I was working at a place that desperately needed a union, which I voted for, and which was enacted. We could all have been the fiercest individuals in the world, but the very existence of those who control everything would have stopped us from pursuing our own individual goals. An individual cannot possibly make a reasonable request against a company that is treating them unfairly.

I'm tempted to call Ms. Rand naïve, but I will refrain because she does not have the benefit (as we do) of several decades of watching her ideas being applied.

The root of the error in Ms. Rand's worldview and its modern descendants is that they rely on a miracle of emergence. The core belief is that by encouraging everyone to grab everything they can with no regard for anyone else, somehow the world will become the best possible place for everyone. It's like the dying (dead?) idea of "trickle-down" economics: give to the rich as much as you possibly can and then somehow, this will result in more money for the poor.

The real tragedy of Ayn Rand is that she doesn't seem to notice that by pursuing a world where the rich are in full control and don't owe the society that enabled them to prosper a darn thing, an individual's rights end up stifled. By advocating boundless individualism, she denies opportunity to other individuals who may be born to poorer families.

So there is an emergent result from her philosophy, just not the kind she wanted.

Okay, this is all getting complex and grey, and that's where Ayn Rand's extreme philosophy (where any extreme philosophy) breaks down: when it leaves the realm of contrived fiction and enters the real world.

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Larry Nocella's novel Where Did This Come From? is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers. For more info, visit LarryNocella.com.

Rock beats Scissors beats Paper beats Rock Update: Screen beats Paper beats Screen.

2009-05-26T07:15:00.010-04:00

Paper has been getting it's ass kicked lately. The conventional wisdom is that video screens are the death of paper. If you have an electronic device, you just download the info and you're done, there's (supposedly) no need to harm any trees.

As usual here in the offices of LarryNocella.com, I'd like to take a step back and review the "conventional wisdom" from an unusual angle. I find the screen vs. paper debate comparable to the Christmas tree debate.

I'm not referring to the perennial news stories about people spazzing because a Christmas tree isn't allowed on public property, causing them to lament the intolerant, especially at this time of year, since everyone is a Christian. I'm also not referring to the laughably manufactured War On Christmas™.

The Christmas tree debate that I think will shed some funky disco lights on the paper vs. screens discussion is about what kind of Christmas tree is better: a real one or a fake one made of plastic and metal.

Where I live, following Christmastime, you can count on finding defrocked Christmas trees tossed on the side of the road. It's annoying. What a waste to cut down a perfectly healthy tree for a short amount of time and then just chuck on the street where it withers away. Why didn't the person dispose of it properly, or even toss it into the woods?

This led me to be fully in favor of the fake (plastic and metal) Christmas tree. You can reuse it and you don't need to cut down any trees.

My view was changed after reading a letter to the editor in a newspaper. Was paper calling to me? The letter (I can't remember the newspaper or I would note it) rocked my world. It made this point: "Real trees are better than fake ones. Eventually the fake one is going to a landfill. Real trees can be used for firewood or composted."

Now I know why Rush Limpballs is so angry all the time! It hurts to be wrong.

Real trees are better, environmentally-speaking. A real tree can be returned to the earth. Ultimately some amount or all of a fake tree goes to a landfill. With minimal effort, a real tree can return to the earth to feed more trees.

Now let's look at paper vs. screens.

At first glance, cell phones and eBook readers like the Amazon Kindle seem like environment-savers: you never have to cut down a single tree to make paper for books, magazines or newspapers ever again. What a blessing! Well, it would be if a combination of plastic, metal and assorted hazardous materials simply appeared out of the air and vanished once obsolete.

In theory you buy one electronic gadget and you're done for life. But that never happens. Microsoft or some other jerk organization that claims they don't have a monopoly but really does makes some upgrades and soon your device is so obsolete it simply won't work. You need to buy a new one. The old one may take a circuitous route through eBay, but ultimately it's landfill stuffing.

The takeaway: don't write paper off just yet. When assessing how good something is for the environment, we have to consider not only what it takes from the earth but how easily it can return. Real trees beat fake trees, paper beats screens easily, super-convenient cell phones are upset by their whipping boys, the phonebook.

So now that I've presented a case for paper, we can all acknowledge there is a lot of paper waste going on. It has been noted that electronic spam isn't just a nuisance, it's wasteful of energy that could go to powering millions of homes. I have to think paper spam is even more destructive. Every week I get a packet of flyers from the same old stores I don't go to.

Spam (paper or electronic) needs to be outlawed, but it will likely never be, because that would put people out of work. Maybe screens and paper should stop fighting and acknowledge they both can be part of the solution. Waste needs to stop all around.

The whole media delivery and receipt world needs to be re-thought. The idea of an electronic device is cool, but not if (as seems to happen) the device goes obsolete every five seconds. The cost of something should figure in how it's going to get back into the earth. You should be able to completely opt-out of spam paper mail, too.

Like that annoying true proverb, it sounds like a lot of challenges, but it's a lot of opportunity to treat our home right.

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Larry Nocella's novel Where Did This Come From? is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers. For more info, visit LarryNocella.com.

Blah-Vroom-Blah! versus Sympathy For the Teabaggers (or, Finding the Best Servants)

2009-05-13T10:51:00.012-04:00

Lately I've been making more of an effort to understand those I disagree with. I'm desperately seeking opinions different than mine instead of digesting the same old media that reinforces my thoughts. I already know what I think and while insecure in some ways, I don't need to constantly be told I'm right (just that I'm beautiful.)

I think of my opinions like a champion boxer who cannot retire. He stays on top only as long as he defeats all contenders, and he must face every challenger.

Results of my quest have been mixed.

I've tried to engage people on the internet, and by "engage" I mean call them morons and get called worse. Strangely, this has not led to the thoughtful exchange I had hoped for.

Fortunately, shortly after embarking on this venture, an opportunity arose. I refer to the recent Tea Bag Parties held on Tax Day.

Having taken part in demonstrations before (mostly on behalf of animal rights) I felt kinship with the teabaggers. I knew what they were up against, even though they had Astroturf backing. If you've never taken to the streets, let me review the weird obstacles that arise when partaking in a protest.

It's not as easy as it sounds. Sure, you stand there with a sign and/or march, but it's often boring (that's one challenge) the weather isn't always friendly, and you even might get nervous, as from stage fright or public speaking.

Then there's the taunting. Knuckleheads driving by are quick to execute what I call the blah-vroom-blah. They disagree with you (judging by their hand gestures) and they scream their discontent without ever slowing down as they whip past. What they yell is invariably lost to the wind, their vehicle's engine and the Doppler effect. Apparently, to some, an exchange of ideas is best handled like fast food: quick and lousy. Thanks to the net, protest taunting options are multiplied. Now you can mock the protestors in lots of new creative ways before, during, and forever after, in multimedia. (True confession: I did some mocking on Twitter.)

Of course, the biggest challenge following a demo is getting your message(s) into the mainstream media (MSM). Sadly, most analyses from the MSM were echoes of the same crap I heard following my animal rights adventures. Some cliches: What is the message? The message just isn't clear. They need a leader. They need a single voice. What are they protesting? What are they doing out there?

I've always felt that you need to be careful not to assess the value of a message based on the skill of the messenger at presenting it. Imagine a genius with a speech impediment. His presentation is incomprehensible, but his ideas are awesome.

Yet that poor genius would be mocked by the MSM because of the snotty way pundits of all stripes assess demonstrations. If the demo isn't executed in an easy-to-report fashion, with a ready-made single message and choreographed dance numbers, they whine. As if it's even possible to gather hundreds of people in one location and have them all sing the same tune with one voice.

The MSM has not learned or perhaps simply can't cover this important facet of America. News is made for single simple messages that fit into defined areas, but with America speaking so diversely, reporting usually falls short. Though it may be true that the protest is disorganized, we need to note that inadequate reporting methods may be a bigger part of the problem.

So let's listen to the teabaggers. They are angry about taxes, angry about bank bailouts, worried about how all Obama's spending will affect future generations. These are all legit concerns. I applaud them taking it to the streets. I like to think a big demo frightens would-be dictators.

Sadly, though, they don't, and that's where I part ways with the teabaggers. I understand they are concerned, but when the Bush-Cheney Criminal Cartel was selling out America for generations in ways financial, legal and moral, teabaggers did nothing. It was only when Fox News whipped them up about Obama that they mobilized. This is disappointing.

Obama's team has repeated endlessly that anyone making less than a quarter-mil per year will see a tax decrease. Yes, Obama is spending, but he has explained his method to pay for it: tax the rich, which the general teabagger seems to also oppose.

How odd! These rugged individualist types practically have a waking wet dream while talking about making their final hopeless stand against a much larger, much more well-armed foe (always the government or some arm thereof.) Yet the same people are always willing to live at the whim of the rich. I say tax the greedy bastards!

That's the teabagger paradox: they fight against their own interests, for free, on behalf of the rich who would steal their life savings and screw them and their families in a second. The best servant is a willing one.

So even with the impossibility of adequate media coverage, can a protest accomplish anything? Well sure, it shows that people are angry enough to get out in public. For that, I commend the teabaggers. As for their no-taxes-for-the-rich stance, I'm afraid when it comes to that, I'm just going to have to say they can suck my balls.

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Larry Nocella's novel Where Did This Come From? is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers. For more info, visit LarryNocella.com.

Liberals Coming to the Defense of Fox News?! (Reluctantly Admitting Maybe We're Not All Evil)

2009-05-04T09:41:00.008-04:00

I miss a good argument, where my core beliefs are challenged. The current Republican Party has no new ideas with which to move the country forward and that's extremely dangerous. To get good ideas, you need lots of them to compete for the top and borrow from each other. It's another example of the GOP paying lip-service to the concept of a free market. If the market's not rigged, they can't compete, not even in the marketplace of ideas.

Funny that the people always complaining that others are unpatriotic commit a kind of treason. By being short on any decent ideas, they are making the USA vulnerable. We'll end up with only one world instead of the best of both.

As a writer, I'm a big First Amendment fan, I love the clash of thoughts provided by free speech and I like Voltaire's quote: I disagree with what you say, but I defend to the death your right to say it.

So it gives me a strange feeling as I am compelled to defend Fox News. The feeling is like finding a woman attractive, only to find out she's a male transvestite. Is this where I note that's the voice of experience or should I just leave that out?

As you likely know (or can easily guess) I think Fox News is a total joke. I honestly can't see any good coming from spending every second of airtime feeding on people's fears, but Fox certainly has the right to do so for fun and profit. I suppose I should also entertain the remote possibility that their reporters are sincere in their perpetual rage over superficial things and not just because there's always a market for anger reinforcement.

That said, I have to take issue with a criticism has been leveled against them by Media Matters, a group I respect as much as I disrespect Fox News. Media Matters always includes their sources with links and audio and video clips. They perform their own research projects and assemble data-heavy reports. They are top-notch journalists and analysts, and save me the time of logging every B.S. thing said by the Fox News team.

As much as I love Media Matters and their commentator, Eric Boehlert, I couldn't help but twinge when I read his article, Glenn Beck and the Rise of Fox News' militia media. (Link.) The column cites many situations in which Fox stokes the militia mentality, that anti-social behavior that presents itself as severely pro-freedom but always ends in a child-molesting micro-mini dictatorship. Boehlert notes that a man named Jim Adkisson shot and killed people in a church. Boehlert then writes this:

When investigators went to Adkisson's home in search of a motive, as well as evidence for the pending trial, they found copies of Savage's Liberalism is a Mental Disorder, Let Freedom Ring by Sean Hannity, and The O'Reilly Factor, by Fox News' Bill O'Reilly. They also came across what was supposed to have been Adkisson's suicide note: a handwritten, four-page manifesto explaining his murderous actions. The one-word answer for his deed? Hate. The three-word answer? He hated liberals.

That's the part that set off my liberalism, because it sounded exactly like agenda-driven accusations I've heard my whole life. Whenever someone goes crazy and kills people, the police search their home and find a number of things. Depending on what mailing lists you are on, you will find the cause of the murder. If a group is worried about music, they focus on the CDs with gothic lyrics (almost always Marilyn Manson.) If the group is active in alerting parents to videogame content, they will focus on the videogames found (almost always Grand Theft Auto.) In this case, Media Matters was focused on Fox News, so that was the source.

Now you could say the case of Adkisson is a bit different because in addition to finding Fox News reading material, there's the suicide note manifesto echoing that material's sentiments.

But the media focuses on action, not inaction. Meaning, we have to remember that there are millions of people who watch Fox but haven't shot people. (Gag. Millions?)

Sadly, yes. Millions of Fox News fans, despite being told that Liberals are evil, have enough human decency not to harm others. Millions of people, despite listening to vicious goth lyrics, have not gone on a shooting spree. Millions of video gaming kids (and pseudo-adults like myself) despite having access to Grand Theft Auto IV, have enough human decency not to run over several hookers, throw a grenade at a hot dog stand and then fly a helicopter into a river.

I think it says something. Despite all the hysteria about media, it might actually be much less potent than anyone believes. Millions and millions of people watch heinously violent stuff all the time. They - I should say we - We enjoy it. Yet the huge massive majority of us have never killed anyone in real life. Most of us are downright kind-hearted.

The common denominator between killers is not their media diet. The common denominator is closer to being access to guns, but even more common than that, to paraphrase Chris Rock: "Whatever happened to just being crazy?"

I believe Fox News is bad for America and humanity, because they keep people ignorant and prey on people's fears of a world always changing beyond their control. I cannot stress enough how I think Fox News is a negative influence, but I don't think it is correct to imply that they were a cause of this or any shooting. They were as much a part of Adkisson killing people as anything else in the rancid soup of his brain.

Fox News doesn't make people shoot people. Music doesn't make people shoot people. Videogames don't make people shoot people. Even guns don't make people shoot people. People shoot people because they're crazy and cruel and deranged.

In summary: Is Fox News responsible for the deaths of those people? No, but it does not immediately follow that Fox is in any way superior to a steaming pile of llama poop.

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Larry Nocella's novel Where Did This Come From? is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers. For more info, visit LarryNocella.com.

Thinking in keywords. Is the net making us horny people, as easy to spark as dry kindle in the Amazon under a kiln owned by Harry the potter?

2009-04-13T10:43:00.022-04:00

Recently, I was researching the effectiveness of ads for my novel, Where Did This Come From? on Google and Yahoo! I was looking into what phrases (known as keywords) were being used on those search engines that ultimately led people to this site.

That's when I came across the fact that the keyword used most often to find my site, by a large margin, was "horny people." Wow! The internet really does invade privacy. All this time I thought I was keeping that to myself! How do I clear my browser's history again?

Seriously, after I got done laughing, I had to find out what was going on. I'm not paying Google and Yahoo! to show my ads when people enter "horny people." Why would I? My novel is about the environment and consumerism, not boinking. So I went to Google, typed in "horny people" (for the first time, I swear) and clicked "Google Search." No, I did not click "I'm Feeling Lucky," Doctor Funnybone.

Bang! There was my site. (Image.) Talk about SEO (and by that, I mean a Search Engine Orgasm!) I was among in the organic listings, not the paid ads, about the fourth one down (it has since moved). It was the Holy Grail of placements! This was a location on the search results that paid ads cannot go. I was there for free, completely by accident. Awesome! Now if only horny people happened to be interested in purchasing an environmental-themed novel also available in eBook format including for the new Amazon Kindle!

What was going on? Apparently, Google had picked up my essay, "Apocalust now! Why are people so horny for Armageddon?" (Link.) and was leading the sexually frustrated to my blog. (You being the sole exception, of course.) As for capturing web traffic, this was good fortune. As for capturing people interested in purchasing my novel, not so lucky, but it was free, so ha ha funny funny, no harm done.

Right? Well sort of.

Let's put on our serious hats for moment (no, not Jimmy-hats, serious hats, thank you! Damn horny people!) This whole thing made me think about all the people trying to tell us the internet is bad, but never successfully articulating how. (See boring reading like the book Snark by David Denby and the article Is Google Making Us Stupid? The Atlantic, July-August 2008)

I'm here to pick up their slack. Unlike those weak critiques, I don't consider the danger I see as inevitable. It's not a doom we are powerless to stop. The net will only harm our thinking if people try to consciously write to achieve what happened to me by accident. Meaning, if people write (and editors edit) for keywords.

Mark Twain said the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter, it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.

If your motivation is not to communicate, but to score web traffic, you won't be looking for the right word based on what makes the most impact on the heart of the reader, but what the most popular keywords are.

Just as word processors (is that not the coldest term possible for writing software?) can check grammar and spelling and suggest synonyms, it will only be a matter of time (if it isn't here now in some form) before you can select your text and request your words be changed to synonyms that are more likely to be keywords. The meaning of your article wouldn't change, but the words would, so your site is more likely to fall into the organic listings.

For example, say you wrote a blog entry that contained the sentence: The chicken was burnt. Afterwards, you would run it through an Search Engine Optimizer (or this process would be Orwellianly automatic) and it changes your sentence to: The cock was hot.

Since porn is big on the net, the latter is much more likely to be listed organically, grabbing all the "hot cock" searches which are most certainly more numerous than "burnt chicken" searches. Sure, your communication is eviscerated, but who cares when you can get free advertising?

This situation reminds me of filmmakers raging against the process of colorizing. I think it was Woody Allen who noted that all the effort that went into making the movie appear correct in black and white was obliterated by the colorization process. Sure, the movie was now in color, but the loving devotion to make it beautiful was gone.

It could be the same if we let search engines dictate what words we choose. All the effort that went into unleashing the lighting would be reduced to the silent blink of the lightning bug. As Orwell pointed out in 1984, where words go, our thoughts follow.

Fortunately, we can control whether this dystopia arrives. To avoid it, we just need to keep writing from the heart, the horny people demographic be damned.

Allow me to give the last word to Rush (the band, not the blowhard) from their song, The Spirit of Radio. When commenting about the changes in the music world, the lyrics note new technology isn't good or bad. "It's really just a question of your honesty."

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Larry Nocella's novel Where Did This Come From? is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers. For more info, visit LarryNocella.com.

Where Did This Come From? versus Where Is This Going?

2009-04-02T11:45:00.012-04:00

I’ve often thought of writing a sequel to Where Did This Come From? titled Where Is This Going? because it's hard to ask one without wondering the other. Both questions can be as spiritual or as concrete as you like. Spirituality being an individual thing, I'm going to talk about the concrete aspect, which will be a nice parallel to the theme of Where Did This Come From? That is, I will ask it primarily in reference to the things we buy.

When you first ask, "Where did this come from?" you learn that you really don't know. Every object around you has undergone several different processes before it arrived in your sphere. Then you start to wonder, well, I not only don't know where it came from but I don't really know where it's going once I throw it out, or after I'm gone. Will it pollute the world for the future? How do I get it back into the earth so future generations have something to use?

"Where is this going?" is a question partially answered, then abandoned by a few TV commercials a while ago. I refer to the ad that connected buying drugs to terrorism. The idea was that the money you spend on drugs ultimately funds terrorism, so don't buy drugs. Following that was a commercial linking buying a gas-guzzling car to terrorism. The idea there was that the money you spend on gas ultimately funds terrorism, so don't buy gas-guzzling cars.

Most people chose one side or the other, often claiming one link was correct and the other was wrong. Or more often, attacking the one without giving the other merit.

The interesting thing about the debate was that everybody was correct at the same time, just not to the degree that they thought they were. Yes, buying drugs leads to terrorism, yes buying gas leads to terrorism, but neither stop there. Buying a hoagie can lead to terrorism, buying shoes can lead to terrorism. Buying shoes and hoagies can also end up financing the Ulaanbaatar Society for Confused Ninjas as well.

It all comes down to free-flowing money. The instant cash leaves your hands, it's completely out of your control. You buy a sandwich at the local sandwich shop. Then the shop owner buys a car from the local lot, whose owner happens to be an as-yet-uncaught pedophile. Does this mean your money supports child molesters? Yes. Is it any fault of yours? No.

So what's the solution? Is there one? Should we just give up on boycotts? Should we bother to ask Where Is This Going?

We don't need to be paralyzed by our ignorance. Really, since when did being ignorant ever stop anyone?

You just need to consider what you're trying to accomplish and determine how direct the link is. For example, buying illegal drugs supports illegal activity only because drugs are illegal. It doesn't necessarily go to terrorism. Buying gas supports terrorism only in the case where the oil came from a company (Shell) or nation that sorta kinda sponsors terrorism but pretends not to (Saudi Arabia.) It's up to you determine how direct or indirect the linkage is. In cases of drugs and oil, it's there, but as stated, it's also there for hoagies and shoes.

In contrast, if you want to stop cruelty to animals, it's a sure bet that boycotting ham will lead to your goal.

Ultimately both ads were right, and ultimately both were wrong. Even if everyone stopped buying illegal drugs, even if everyone stopped buying oil, those who wanted to kill people for some agenda would find the money and they would find a way.

Leaving aside privacy concerns, it would be interesting if money could be tagged electronically and then you could see where it went. Sort of like WheresGeorge.com but on a much more detailed scale.

Just like with Where Did This Come From? we can't really know Where Is This Going? but we can still do our best to act responsibly.

Maybe it's best we don't know. You think you're mad now about the bottomless money pit that large banks have become? Imagine how angry you'd be if you actually knew where it all went!

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Larry Nocella's novel Where Did This Come From? is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers. For more info, visit LarryNocella.com.